Macarons madness

This is a back post, a while ago a friend of mine shared her macarons recipe, one which she took a class for which was very kind of her. This is the first time I attempted Italian meringue, this is the one using sugar syrup to make. The meringue was not too difficult to make, it was the piping that was challenged for me. Just using drawn circles, it was hard to get the piping going at a consistent rate in order to end up with circles that would pair up. I've made another batch since the first try, it turned out to be quite fun as you get to play with colours of the shells as well as dream up flavours for the filling, I've tried lemon cream, dark chocolate ganache and green tea buttercream..all yummy!

The green tea one

 

 

Italian meringue

 

 

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Japanese cheese cake

This is my attempt at the acclaimed japanese cotton soft cheesecake. Actually, it's my second attempt, the first one, just 24 hours earlier was not what one would call a success. After the usual searching for the recipe to try and watching countless uTube videos, I settled for one and went for it. After turning up the motivation crank to full , I discovered I only had 3 eggs instead of 6 but I was still determined so I halved everything and before you know I was watching tv waiting for the ding of the timer. As the forces that be will have it, baking is not as easy sailing as that. The cake (this is the first one btw) rose and rose while I was focused on the tv and the top cracked open, bringing to mind mount vesuvious. After which once removed from the oven proceeded to deflate and resembled something like a flat tyre. Nevertheless it still went into the fridge for the required time before being consumed as per the recipe...oh, only it actually didn't as someone (not me) forgot to put it in the fridge after promising to do so. Which meant that cake nbr1 was really not meant to be. So on to cake nbr2, deciding to give the recipe another go, I started again, this time watching the cake like a hawk. End result, not too bad, there's still a bit of a collapsed but passable. Though it tastes good, would I try again? Maybe but not in the near future.

 

 

 

Pork floss (bak huu)

I was speaking to my sis this morning and she mentioned bak huu and I thought it's been a long time since I had any and since I had a pork fillet in the fridge.....why not? I did happen to have a recipe for it, just never tried it so no surfing the net required and it only required 3 ingredients...pork, light soya and rock sugar! So easy, boil everything in the slow cooker till the meat starts to colaspe, shred then fry in the pan till dry. hmmm, need to run to the supermarket to buy bread now as I have nothing to eat it with!

 

Pandan kaya

I made 3 lots of kaya in the last 3 days! The first lot was the normal caramel kaya made the night before a friend's party for pulut tai tai. Since it was made late at night, I think I sort of lost concentration and probably stirred too long as though not burnt the kaya was of a weird texture but still edible. The next day when the pulut tai tai was ready, I had some spare time and so decided to whip up a new batch of kaya for my friend instead of using the one I made previously. This time, I made the pandan version, it turned out much better, in fact I liked it so much that I made more the next day for myself as I was dreaming of kaya toast!

Kaya toast... Best breakfast ever!

 

 

Angku kuih

I was making ang ku kuih again... This time for a friend's friend's daughter's birthday, so they had to be perfect! I made some changes to the recipe I used previously which was already good but I needed the ang ku to stay nice and soft for longer. With the changes, which I have now written down before I forget which tips worked, the angku stayed soft till the next day! Wow, even I was impressed, hahaha... The ones I made for the party was with the mini moulds, no pictures as I had to rush them off in time for the birthday party. After the delivery, I can home and made up some more with the medium sized mould, these are the ones in the picts.

Inside, green bean filling

Glossy and chewy!

 

 

Kedgeree simplified

This is my take on Kedgeree, which is a fish, spices, rice and eggs all in one dish from colonial India which is popular here. My take on this dish simply means to remove all the time consuming steps and use only the main ingredients! I used smoked mackerel instead of haddock as that's what I had. Instead of poaching the fish in bay infused milk, I pan fried the fish before flaking. Then in the style of the typical Asian fried rice, I fried the dish up then topped with sliced boiled egg...oh, and I added spinach to top up the vege/fibre content of the dish. It kinds of remains me of a Malay dish but can't think which!

 

Pickled green chillies

Pickled green chillies are a great accompaniment of most noodle dishes...my favourites to have them with are Char Hor Fun, Hokkien Char and or course Wanton mee. Quick and simple to make, scald, add vinegar, sugar and salt and leave it to do its magic in the fridge overnight...yumm!

Just made

 

After a night in the fridge

 

Croissants

This is a back post, I can't believe I forgot about this one. For a really long time I've been wanting to make croissants, am always fascinated with the folding of the dough to make the layers. I finally did get round to it using a recipe from the great British Bakeoff. To results was ok-ish, which means the hunt for a better recipe is on, however it will be a while before I will attempt it again...too much waiting in between steps!

Mini me having a go at the dough